Business
Travel Trends
2024

2024 is a turning point for the business travel market.

According to GBTA, global business travel spend is set to surpass pre-pandemic levels and reach $ 1.4 trillion in 2024.1

For the UK alone the total business travel spend was £35,245 million in 2023. That puts it at fifth out of the top 15 markets worldwide.2 And the UK business travel market is also forecast to exceed pre-pandemic levels in 2024.

It's clear that travel remains an important topic for businesses: Enhancing client relationships, improving partnerships, fostering collaboration - these are all key considerations for a competitive corporate environment.

But there's more to the story.

Based on airline ticket transaction data in our core European markets*, we've identified the latest trends in business travel we'll likely see in 2024.

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1. More business
class tickets

While economy remains the most popular and perhaps cost-effective class for business travellers, more and more are now opting for business class tickets. Naturally, intercontinental flights see the highest share of travellers (43.7 %) opting for greater comfort compared to continental    (3.4 %) and domestic flights (7.1 %).

This trend is also mirrored in the UK, with 6.6% of travellers now opting for business-class tickets, while the economy options stays firmly in the lead at 88.3%.

This goes some way to explaining why businesses are now paying € 200 more on average for their flight tickets than in 2019.

 

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2. Weekend flights
remain popular

Travelling on a weekend is a great way to maximise a trip. Most notably, it's often a sign of business travellers setting aside time to explore a location outside of their business commitments – a trend known as bleisure travel.

Though dipping slightly from the highs of 2022, weekend trips are still more popular than in 2019. However, Monday remains the top choice for business flights with 29.8 % of all bookings.

 

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And this also remains true for UK travellers, with 30.1% opting for Monday as their travel day of choice.

3. Earlier ticket
purchases

Better planning, cheaper prices, more availability – there are many benefits to booking business trips early. And with corporate travellers booking over three days earlier than in 2019, they're becoming more prompt with their bookings than ever.

In the UK, the trend for advanced intercontinental flight booking continues at an average of 41.2 days. While for domestic flights, the average advance purchase sits at 19.2 days.

 

Intercontinental flights lead the trend, being booked 40 days in advance in 2023 – a whole week earlier than in 2019.

 

Earlier-ticket-purchases-3

 

4. Trip length
stabilising

Over the last few years, we’ve seen a jump in the length of the average business trip. This trend is starting to stabilise with trips now lasting just under six days, down slightly from 2022, but up from 2019.

And as businesses become more conscious of the need for sustainable practices, we’ve witnessed a continued drop in one-day trips over the last few years – down from 14.3% of trips in 2019 to just 6.8% in 2023.

The duration of business trips in the UK averages at a total of 4.8 days.

The reasons for this lie in the rise of bleisure, sustainability efforts, and considering cost savings.

It’s also interesting to note that for intercontinental trips, 14% of the tickets booked are for a duration of 14+ days, while for domestic trips that figure is only a mere 0.5%. 

 

 

And as businesses become more conscious of their sustainable practices, we’ve witnessed a continued drop in one-day trips over the last few years – down from 14.3 % of trips in 2019 to just 6.8 % in 2023.

 

Trip-length-stabilizing-3-1

 

5. Top UK travel
destinations

In 2023, the cumulative distance flown by all flights originating from the UK was 630,686,543 miles.

In Europe, Germany was the most popular destination, accounting for 27.7% of tickets booked. This was followed by France (11.2%), the Netherlands (9.7%), Spain (7.6%), and then Switzerland (6.9%).

For intercontinental destinations, the United States was head and shoulders above the rest at 40.6%, followed by India (7.8%), the United Arab Emirates (4.9%), Singapore (4.2%), and Canada (4.1%).

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More to look out for

That’s what our transaction data says. But there are more trends we are starting to see in the broader business travel market that are worth keeping an eye on.

 

 

Digitalisation

More and more processes are taking place through digital channels using digital devices. This offers more convenience, better security, and greater access to data than ever before.

This is enabling the massive growth we’re already witnessing in the global online travel market, which is expected to reach over   $ 1 trillion in value by 2030.3

 

AI

Generative AI has been revolutionising industries – and that includes business travel.

It has the potential to enable better, more efficient travel management, helping create more time and cost-effective itineraries while streamlining customer communications and payment processes.

According to a report from PwC, an estimated $97.9 billion will be spent on AI worldwide in 2023. This is likely to grow significantly in 2024.4

* The AirPlus core European markets of Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Italy and the United Kingdom were analyzed.

1 Global Business Travel Industry Forecast | GBTA

2 Global Business Travel Industry Forecast | GBTA

3 Online travel market size worldwide | Statista

4 Sizing the prize | PwC

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